


All Right

by TeamHPForever



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Buried Alive, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 19:51:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2241354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamHPForever/pseuds/TeamHPForever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times John asks Sherlock if he's all right</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Right

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic quite a while ago and just found it in my files gathering dust. It's all pre-Reichenbach, pre-series three stuff. I wrote it before series three aired and I didn't want to deal with the raw wound that was Reichenbach back then.

1\. “Are you all right?”

Sherlock, lying dazed on the ground, takes a moment to think about that question. He can’t remember the last time he was ever asked that.

Maybe when he was young, by his mother or Mycroft.

Maybe by Lestrade, though that question was more likely to be “Are you clean?” or “Are you able to work a case?”

It’s never been like this, with someone looming over him wearing an expression of genuine concern.

“I’m fine,” he finally answers, reaching out to accept John’s hand as the shorter man helps him to his feet. They’re in a maze of back alleys, dark and isolated. Another day, another case, another suspect trying (unsuccessfully) to turn and fight rather than continue to flee.

“Are you injured?” John asks, falling easily into doctor mode. Sherlock pulls away as he tries to peer into his eyes to check for a concussion even though he highly doubts John can see anything properly down here.

That question is more familiar. “As I just said, I am fine.”

“Okay.” John smiles and lets Sherlock push past him as they follow the alleys. Lestrade is waiting for them on the other end, watching as their suspect is pushed into another officer’s car. Sherlock explains eagerly how the man conspired to kill his grandmother and her boyfriend before she could change her will and take away part of his inheritance—money, how dull.

If John tries to examine Sherlock as he speaks then the consulting detective pretends not to notice.

2\. “Are you all right?”

Sherlock is lying down once again the second time he hears that question, but in bed this time instead of on the cold, unforgiving pavement. His entire body feels heavy and sluggish. He tries to open his eyes but they feel stuck closed.

He opens his mouth to answer, but his voice is only a rough croak.

Sore throat. Exhaustion. Headache.

He must be ill.

Sherlock never gets ill. His body is transport, it can’t break down. There are cases to be solved. It’s been two weeks since the last one and Lestrade promised him a nice cold case—a six, at least—if he’d stop texting him.

“Sherlock?” John’s voice cuts through his thoughts again. He’s never known anyone to be able to do that. Then again, he’s never known anyone quite like John.

Right. John had asked him a question.

“I am ill,” Sherlock replies, grimacing at the way his voice sounds.

“I can see that.” John piles up a stack of pillows at the head of the bed and helps Sherlock sit up so he can give him a proper medical examination. When he’s done, he declares that Sherlock merely has the flu.

“Fix it,” Sherlock demands.

“I’ll make you some soup.” John’s voice is easy-going, with the smallest hint of laughter, and Sherlock fumes that his body is sick while John is around to witness it. “Don’t worry, you’ll be all right in a few days.”

Sherlock doesn’t want to be all right in a few days, he wants to be all right now, but he knows John won’t hear of him running about London with a case of influenza.

So Sherlock stays in bed, commandeering John’s laptop and sipping at a mug of broth because he knows that it makes John happy.

3\. “Are you all right?”

The tone is different this time than the last two. The first time was more urgent, an utterance in desperation, and the second time was softer and knowing.

This one is worried and raw.

It’s the first time Sherlock and John have sat down together—alone—in a while. They’ve been caught up in the case of Irene Adler that’s just now been brought to an end by her death.

Sherlock doesn’t know how to feel.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock replies. In his mind, Mycroft’s voice echoes, _You barely knew her._

It’s true that Sherlock didn’t know her long but he likes to believe that he knows most people better than they know themselves. Irene may have been a mystery in more ways than one, but he figured her out in the end.

Just like he always does.

She almost beat him at his own game and that more than anything is what bangs around his brain now that she’s gone.

Sherlock looks up at John and sees an understanding look shining back at him. He doesn’t know if John really understands what’s going on in his head right now—though if anyone has ever truly understood, it’s him—but looking back at him he feels like he does.

“It was just a case,” Sherlock says.

John nods but his eyes tell a different story. Sherlock has never quite noticed anyone’s heart in their eyes the way he sees John’s. “Of course.”

4\. “Are you all right?”

The words are a scream this time, shouted through a break in the dirt above. He’s been buried alive for forty-three minutes and he knows that he’s never been more relieved to hear another person’s voice in his life.

“Open the coffin!” he shouts back.

“He’s fine,” he hears John say, presumably to Lestrade and whoever else is up there working on his rescue. Within a minute, they’ve shattered the lock on his prison and the top is lifting.

The sun blares down on him, making Sherlock squint. He breathes slowly and deeply, reveling in the smell of something that isn’t dirt and wood.

John helps him to his feet and out of what was intended to be his grave, then throws his arms around Sherlock.

He accepts the hug and then turns to Lestrade. “You’re looking for two men: white, mid-40s, driving a black SUV. They’re heading for the London airport now to take a flight to Australia at six-fifteen. One of their last names is Carad--” There’s more, but Lestrade holds up a hand to stem the flow of information as he hurries to call it in.

“Are you all right?” Sherlock asks as he turns his attention back to John. His flatmate is abnormally pale and his hand keeps twitching to where Sherlock knows he’s keeping his gun.

“Fine.” John blinks at him, decidedly not fine. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

5\. “Are you all right?”

It’s the complete opposite of the last time, whispered in Sherlock’s ear in the comfort of their flat. They’re curled up on their couch, John draped across Sherlock as they kiss.

Sherlock is not quite sure how they came to be here. He knows that it’s been two days since he was buried alive. He knows that the police caught the two men that tried to kill him before they were able to leave the country.

He also knows that John made him a cup of tea, which is now cold on the table next to them. He remembers the delivery of the cup, remembers the way John’s fingers brushed against his.

He remembers John sitting next to him and the usual argument of what they should watch—Sherlock wanting a documentary on medieval torture and John one of the James Bond movies. He remembers John looking at him with his heart in his eyes and knowing that there isn’t anyone he’d rather be sitting here with than him.

Then, suddenly, John was getting closer and then they were kissing and he knew that he should want to stop it—he was married to his work and John was his flatmate and he didn’t want to do anything that would risk ruining that—but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away.

“All right would not begin to describe it,” Sherlock whispers back.


End file.
